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There’s some Apple UI magic sprinkled into the Pencil Pro experience

The Apple Pencil Pro is now arriving in users’ hands as of yesterday’s launch, and with it discoveries are being made about some of the finer details of the new product.

One especially noteworthy example comes from Quinn Nelson, who found that Apple has sprinkled a heaping dose of UI magic into the Pencil Pro interface when using the new M4 iPad Pro.

Apple shows off with digitally rendered shadows

When Apple first debuted the Pencil Pro, it highlighted some core new features. There’s a new sensor that grants the ability to squeeze the Pencil to bring up a contextual menu designed for switching tools. You can also rotate it to, thanks to a built-in gyroscope, make marks with greater precision.

What Apple didn’t highlight, that Nelson discovered, is the presence of a digital Pencil shadow that Apple built into iPadOS. Check out the video below.

The ability to hover over the iPad Pro and see a shadow of the tool you’re using is absolutely unnecessary, yet remarkably cool at the same time.

9to5Mac’s Take

Apple presents the iPad as a creative tool that can replace many traditional creative instruments. Little UI touches like this, though they may go unnoticed by many users, nonetheless help move the iPad and Apple Pencil closer to replicating the experience of physical pen and paper. That’s undoubtedly a good thing.

Have you tried the new Apple Pencil Pro yet? What do you think of the hover shadow? Let us know in the comments.

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Author

Avatar for Ryan Christoffel Ryan Christoffel

Ryan got his start in journalism as an Editor at MacStories, where he worked for four years covering Apple news, writing app reviews, and more. For two years he co-hosted the Adapt podcast on Relay FM, which focused entirely on the iPad. As a result, it should come as no surprise that his favorite Apple device is the iPad Pro.

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